James Oglethorpe was one of the 22 trustees who gave his entrepreneur services as the colony's founder and military leader. He spent 15 years in the colony; never slept in a bed. His greatest accomplishment was the War of Jenkins' Ear, a trade war fought between Spain and England when an Englishman violated the treaty, his ear cut off and sent back to England as an example. The land war was fought on the American continent, beginning about 1742 when Oglethorpe laid a useless siege on the well fortified Fort Augustine in Florida, and ended with the Battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simon's Island, with the Highlanders routing the British. The british commander calculated that they were outnumbered by American troops, and sailed its fleet from Augustine to Spain. After the war, Oglethorpe returned to England (about 1744). He was then sent into another military expedition in England which went astray and for which he was blamed. After that, he was married to a rich widow. This oil portrait was
brought to Georgia and hangs in the Mason's Hall in Savannah.
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"Colonial Georgians", a book by Jeannette Holland Austin, contains the historical details of Oglethorpe's life, as well as that of the colonists. All this and more (land grants, immigration lists, baptisms, etc.) is available to members of http://www.georgiapioneers.com/ in the colonial section.
